Sydney's Dance Recital

Sydney's First Pair of Ballet Slippers.

Sydney finished off her first year of dance by participating in the annual production put on by her dance studio. Although it was kind of stressful getting ready for the big day...it turned out super cute. She sang and danced to this song (I think it might be from Little Mermaid II) "Shhhh, Please! Don't Wake the Whale" Here is a cute pose of Sydney in her costume and makeup. Yes, make-up...it requires lots of patience to try and put eyeliner and mascara on a three year old.

At the end of the dance everyone had to make an X, and Sydney was showing us her X!


I know it is kind of hard to see much in this picture...but Sydney is the last dancer on the right. She was the youngest (and shortest) girls in her class so she was on the end of the line-up. This was a picture from the dress-rehearsal day.

Dress rehearsal was hilarious. We made it to the school where she would be performing at and checked into the little girls dressing room (which was the band room, I guess). There were probably 50 other little girls and their mom's getting their hair, make-up, and costumes on. It was pretty crazy in the dressing room...you can only imagine. All the little girls were SUPER excited to get all dressed up. I tried so hard to get a few cute pictures of all the little girls in her class but I felt like a paparazzi chasing Sydney and the rest of them around the room. They kept jumping down the "steps" in the room and chasing each other all around. I'm really glad I didn't have to be a room mom on the day of the recital. The room moms' job was to keep all the girls in their assigned class in their costume (without letting them mess up their hair and make-up or tear those cute costumes!) and keep these excited little girls quiet and occupied for FOUR hours. Can you believe that?? I just held my breath when the lights when on for Sydney's dance, just hoping she had made it out onto the stage all in one piece! I guess it all worked out somehow.

Here are a few of the girls in Sydney's class.

Congratulations Sydney! You are our cute little ballerina!

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Our first week...

Well we survived the first week. I just need to remember that the first year goes by so fast. Sometimes it is hard to be very excited about the newborn stage...especially at 2:30 am. At least it is too hot to go much of anywhere during the day so I don't mind staying home as much. Everyone has been very helpful and we really appreciated all the food that our friends and family brought over.

We are definitely getting more sleep than we ever did with Sydney. So far Sophie wakes up about every three hours at night and is awake for about thirty minutes to an hour at a time (so that means 2 hours of sleep in a row)! Sydney usually slept for about a half hour and was awake about an hour at a time so that pretty much meant no sleeping for anyone. Sophie also takes naps during the day so I can squeeze in a nap if I need to.

Every time I look at Sophie, I feel like I am looking at a tiny copy of Sydney. They both have/had the same little expressions...like making O's with their mouth and just staring around all wide eyed. This is a picture of Sydney (above) when she was about a week old but and I think they look almost alike. Sophie might look like she has lighter skin, but it is probably a combination of better picture quality and the absence of jaundice (which Sydney had problems with when she was a newborn).

Sydney and Sophie are making funny faces for the camera.

Sydney is showing us how wide she can open her mouth.

Ok...now it is Sophie's turn!

We were really hoping that Sophie wouldn't take a pacifier. Neither of us enjoy getting up in the middle of the night to plug it back in. At one point, we used to put 5-7 binks all around Sydney's head at night, hoping that if it fell out she would be able to find at least one to plug back in. There were soooo many nights I remember hunting all over for those little binks. Sometimes they would fall underneath the crib and then we would have to crawl under there to get them. Sophie unfortunately seems to really like her bink and gets very upset if we try to take it away or just do without it. Usually after she has been fussing for 15 minutes in the middle of the night, it is just easier to give in and let her have it. Oh well, I guess if this is her worst habit, I can handle it. It's just the no sleeping thing that I have a problem with.

Here is another cute sleeping picture of Sophie. Sometimes she likes to be swadled but inevitably she somehow frees her arms and puts them up around her face.

I was getting ready to download pictures to the computer and Sydney insisted I take some pictures of her in her princess dress to put on our site. Like usual, she won't stand/sit still for the picture even though I probably took 10-15 pictures. At least this one has an almost normal smile! Besides playing dress up princesses, Sydney LOVES to cut and color. She will spend hours cutting out things and coloring them. Right now the house has lots of little scraps everywhere and I don't have a big enough fridge to put up every picture she has colored for us.

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